Article: Why do we need Creeds, Confessions and Catechisms? by Jacob Gerber _ original source: https://jacobgerber.org/why-do-we-need-creeds-confessions-and-catechisms/

By the grace of God, I grew up in churches that loved the Bible. I have vivid memories of hearing God’s word read, sung, and preached every week. I memorized a good portion of the Bible through AWANA. I still remember specific things I learned about the Bible in Vacation Bible School and Sunday School lessons. In high school, I was introduced to a regular Bible reading plan that I have used since 2000.

I cannot understate the importance of that biblical foundation. I would not be the man I am today without such regular, faithful, careful exposure to God’s word. Upon that foundation laid by my parents and the leaders in my churches, my love for the Bible has continued to grow to this day.

Biblical and Confessional Presbyterianism

In college, though, I met a group of Christians who loved the Bible as much as I did, but with an important difference. Where I had exclusively focused on the Bible, they made use of a specific set of tools from their tradition to assist their study of the Bible: the Westminster Standards, including the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms.

At first, this emphasis on man-made creeds and confessions troubled me. Wasn’t this precisely the sort of thing Jesus condemned when he warned us not to make void the word of God for the sake of human tradition (Matt. 15:1–9)? Haven’t Protestants pointed out time and again the Roman Catholics errors that have arisen from adding tradition to the word of God?

Eventually, I came to see the crucial difference. Roman Catholics cite their alleged oral tradition as an additional source of revelation beyond the written word of God. The tradition of Confessional Protestants (including the Westminster Standards for Presbyterians) limits itself simply to confessing and teaching what we believe the written word of God teaches.

The best creeds, confessions, and catechisms, then, do not add new information to supplement the Bible. Instead, they only seek to clarify what the Bible teaches. That is, they drive us back to the Bible, instead of beyond the Bible.

The Bible is the only infallible rule of faith and practice (WCF 31.3). Our creeds, confessions, and catechisms are only secondary and subsidiary to the Bible. Thus, we do not put our confessional statements on the same level with the Bible; however, we hold to our confessional statements because we believe that they are thoroughly biblical.

Why Do We Need Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms?

In this article, then, I want to offer nine reasons why Christians should use creeds, confessions, and catechisms. For a more in-depth discussion, I warmly commend Samuel Miller’s classic work, The Utility and Importance of Creeds and Confessions. Much of what I am writing here is drawn from Miller’s work.

1. Confession

To begin, we must recognize that the Bible commands us to confess our faith. As Miller observes, this means more than merely reading the Bible, but actually confessing the doctrines of the Bible in summary form. Creeds and confessions, then, do not violate the Scriptures. Rather, it is impossible to obey the Bible without using creeds and confessions!

Indeed, the Bible says that confessing certain doctrines is necessary for our salvation: that Jesus is the Son of God (1 John 2:23; 4:15), that Jesus Christ came in the flesh (1 John 4:2), and that Jesus Christ is Lord (Rom. 10:9; 1 Cor. 12:3; Phil. 2:11).

Therefore, “let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (Heb. 10:23).

2. Clarity

Creeds and confessions give us clarity about what the Bible teaches. All Christians affirm that they believe the Bible in some sense, but Christians hold vastly different beliefs about what the Bible teaches.

A creed or confessional statement gives clear affirmations of what a church believes, and equally clear denials of what that church does not believe. Without this clarity, it is all too easy to sneak false teaching into the church, or to fail to give people the full counsel of God from the Scriptures.

3. Circumspection

Creeds and confessional statements help us to think about our beliefs carefully. Creeds and confessions are not written quickly, but through careful biblical exegesis, extended deliberation, and precise sharpening of language.

In an ongoing way, creeds and confessions help the church to give definition to our faith. Every individual Christian does not need to build his or her theology from scratch. Instead, believers can lean on the creeds and confessions of the church to add nuance, distinctions, and precision to their theology.

4. Catechesis

The creeds, confessions, and catechisms of the church form the core curriculum for teaching Christians the faith. Catechesis is a word that simply means teaching. Catechisms, however, are usually a specific format of teaching through questions and answers.

Children learn catechisms at an age where memorization is easy. Later in life, when young people ask lots of questions to work out their personal beliefs, catechisms help provide answers to their difficult questions. Then, as adults, high quality catechisms offer ongoing theological enrichment to continue growing deeper in the faith.

As a Presbyterian, I am grateful not only to have the Westminster Confession of Faith, but also for the Larger and Shorter Catechisms that come along with it. Each bears witness to the same biblical truth, but from different perspectives, and for different purposes.

5. Confirmation

Creeds and confessions help to confirm that other believers, pastors, and churches do indeed hold to the same faith. Miller gives the example of the ancient heretic Arius, who professed to believe all that the Scriptures teach about God the Son (Creeds and Confessions, p. 32–35).

The problem, of course, was that Arius twisted the meanings of those words to fit his theology. He understood that the Son was a created being who was not infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth (WSC 4). Thus, while he professed to believe that Jesus was the Son of God, he did not actually believe that Jesus was God.

The only way to evaluate and confirm what Arius really did or did not believe, then, was with a creed. While Arius could profess to believe the words of the Bible, he could not agree with the creed that defined how the Bible was using those words. The Nicene Creed did not go beyond the Bible, but simply clarified what the Bible teaches about the full divinity of the Son. In this way, Arius’s theology was exposed and rejected as heresy.

6. Consistency

Creeds and confessions offer consistency in the church. From church to church, creeds and confessions provide consistency in a shared doctrinal understanding. Congregations know where their leaders stand on important topics and issues.

Even from week to week, creeds and confessions make sure that pastors do not preach wildly different messages as they preach from different biblical passages. Because creeds and confessions carefully work through all the biblical material, they give nuance, depth, and boundaries that help avoid saying too much or too little from any particular passage of the Bible.

7. Concord

This high level of consistency allows for churches with the same confessional beliefs to enjoy true unity together. Two cannot really walk together unless they agree (Amos 3:3). Christians of divided mind may experience surface level agreement for a time, but only until deeper issues surface.

The Lutherans actually call their own confessional documents the Book of Concord—that is, the book of peaceful agreement. Creeds and confessions bring concord to a church.

8. Conscience

Creeds and confessions protect the consciences of both leaders and general members of a church. No one should be forced to join a particular church, and people should only join churches where they sufficiently agree with the doctrine.

How, though, can a Christian come to know everything that a church believes before joining? A thorough investigative process, from scratch, would take years. Should anyone really wait so long before joining a church?

Creeds and confessions, then, serve to protect the consciences of the church’s membership. By making a church’s confession clear and open, that church cannot bait-and-switch her members with surprises down the road that would violate someone’s conscience.

9. Correction

Creeds and confessions help with biblical, godly correction. When someone begins exploring bad theology, established creeds and confessions help to bring that person back to sound, healthy doctrine.

No, creeds and confessions cannot answer every question in advance. Good creeds and confessions, however, often help to navigate exactly what the Bible teaches on a matter. As such, they are cool, dispassionate resources in the midst of heated doctrinal disputes.

Conclusion

Creeds, confessions, and catechisms, then, are vital for upholding, teaching, defending, and maintaining the word of God. Without them, we are more easily distracted, deceived, and defeated in the faith once-for-all delivered to the saints (Jude 3).

May we all grow increasingly into the mind of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, through the full counsel of God’s word. May our creeds, confessions, and catechisms be the unshakable foundation—although never the final word—of our doctrine.

Remember the word of the Apostle Paul to Timothy: “[13] Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. [14] By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you” (2 Tim. 1:13–14).

Let us follow the sound words of the creeds, confessions, and catechisms handed down to us by our forefathers, insofar as they faithfully expound the good deposit given to us in the Scriptures.

While I am a Reformed Baptist, much of what is communicated in this brief article “Maintaining Unity in the PCA – The Usefulness of the Westminster Standards” by Pastor Nick Batzig would equally apply to the Baptist Confessions and Catechisms I hold to (original source here – http://gospelreformation.net/maintaining-unity-pca/):

In his short essay, “Is the Shorter Catechism Worthwhile?” B.B. Warfield told the following short story about the importance of loving the teaching of the Westminster Shorter Catechism:

A general officer of the United States army…was in a great western city at a time of intense excitement and violent rioting. The streets were over-run daily by a dangerous crowd. One day he observed approaching him a man of singularly combined calmness and firmness of mien, whose very demeanor inspired confidence. So impressed was he with his bearing amid the surrounding uproar that when he had passed he turned to look back at him, only to find that the stranger had done the same. On observing his turning the stranger at once came back to him, and touching his chest with his forefinger, demanded without preface: “What is the chief end of man?’”On receiving the countersign, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever”—”Ah!” said he, “I knew you were a Shorter Catechism boy by your looks!” “Why, that was just what I was thinking of you,” was the rejoinder.

My initial exposure to the Westminster Standards (i.e., the Westminster Confession of Faith, and Shorter and Larger Catechisms) was a significantly less advantageous experience. As a new convert, I was surrounded by a number of seminarians who seemed to principally appeal to the Standards in order to critique and correct the erroneous theology of others. This fostered in me the perception that the Standards were fundamentally polemical in nature. I began to view the Westminster Confession of Faith as a restrictive and contrarian document—as something akin to legal documents rather than a theological document full of spiritually rich expositions of biblical truth. Additionally, I have met numerous ministers in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) who have expressed almost a sense of embarrassment when speaking about the Standards on account of their antiquated origin and language.

Over the years, however, I have come to view the Westminster Standards, not through the lens of early pejorative experiences but through the lens of ongoing Christian experience and pastoral ministry. I now have a deep love for the Standards as being a succinct exposition of biblical truth and articulation of the doctrines of the Protestant tradition. The Standards are a doctrinal outline of the Christian faith—full of both doctrinal and experiential truth.

A Standard?

The Westminster Standards have long served as the doctrinal standards to which ministers and churches in Reformed Presbyterian churches adhere. While the Standards have been a staple of Reformed Presbyterianism for centuries, they were first and foremost ecumenical documents—the product of 120 of the greatest theologians in all of church history. The members of the Assembly, who themselves served in different ecclesiastical fellowships (having quite a number of differing theological opinions among themselves!) sought to walk together as far as they could for the sake of biblical fidelity and doctrinal unity. Meeting over 1,130 times in 6 years, the members of the Assembly have given us one of the most careful articulations of the Christian faith even written.

In Reformed Presbyterianism, the Westminster Standards are just that—the standard by which we vow to test our doctrinal formulations. Ministers and members alike are to appeal to them to express what we believe to be biblical teaching and to reject what lies outside the bounds of confessional orthodoxy. They are not inspired and inerrant documents. God has reserved those categories for His breathed-out Word. The Standards can, by proper process, be amended by our denomination—a process to which God’s Word may never be subject. While we acknowledge that the Westminster Standards are human documents—subject to revision—one old Southern Presbyterian professor stated so well the importance of the theology of the Westminster Standards when he said, “The theology of the Confession of Faith is not perfect; but, it’s better than yours; and, you can have your theology corrected by a diligent study of it.” That sentiment captures the high regard that Reformed Presbyterian ministers have had for the Westminster Standards.

The Usefulness of the Standards

Despite the fact that the Standards have always held a uniquely important place in Presbyterian church history, many American Presbyterian ministers have either denied their teachings, ignored their usefulness, or simply given lip service to the vows that they took to uphold and teach their truths. Downplaying the importance of the Westminster Standards lay at the root of the Old School/New School division in the 19^th Century—a division that resulted in the toleration of doctrine and practices that opposed the clear teaching of Scripture and the Standards. Additionally, it was a neglect of confessional orthodoxy and a denial of the integrity of the vows that Presbyterian ministers took that led to an embrace of theological liberalism at the turn of the 20^th Century in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America and at Princeton Theological Seminary.

There will always be those who deny the teaching of the Confession, ignore its usefulness, or give lip service to the vows that they have taken to uphold and teach its truth. The last of these dangers is perhaps the most subtly pernicious. J. Gresham Machen explained that those who tolerated the shift towards theological liberalism in the Presbyterian Church, in the name of unity, were more dangerous than the theological liberals who were pressing for the diminution of doctrinal fidelity and confessional orthodoxy. In Christianity and Liberalism, Machen wrote:

Many indeed are seeking to avoid the separation. Why, they say, may not brethren dwell together in unity? The Church, we are told, has room for both liberals and for conservatives. The conservatives may be allowed to remain if they will keep trifling matters in the background and attend chiefly to “the weightier matter of the law.” And among the things thus designated as “trifling” is found the cross of Christ as a really vicarious atonement for sin.1

The tendency for ministers to utilize the subtlety of arguments that press for unity as over against truth (or, unity as being “weightier” than truth) ought to alert us to our own need to be diligent in defending confessional integrity in the PCA. Real and lasting unity is rooted in truth. We are far from immune to a shift toward theological liberalism. To think otherwise would be the height of foolish self-confidence.

This ever-present danger is intensified by the fact that we live in a day and age when men and women treat the vows that they have taken before God with little to no solemnity. Individuals throw away their marriage and walk away from local churches over the most inconsequential issues. The Scriptures are clear about the seriousness with which God deals with the vows that we take before Him. In Ecclesiastes 5:4–6, Solomon explained,

When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands?

Both ministers and members of PCA churches take vows to “maintain…the purity and the peace of the church” (BCO 5-9 (i.3), 21-5 (6) and 57-5). Those of us who have taken ministerial vows must seek to keep those vows with the utmost seriousness. If we treated the quest for unity in our marriage as being more important than the quest for truth, duplicity, deceit, and infidelity would run rapid and ultimately destroy any and all unity. It is unimaginable that any Christian would desire anything less than loving unity in truth with his or her spouse. How equally zealous ought we to be for loving unity in truth in the Church of God, the bride of Christ which He purchased with His own blood! After all, ministers in Christ’s church have been entrusted with the great stewardship and principle task of maintaining the peace and the purity of the bride of Christ.

A consideration of our own experiences, the nature of the Standards, the history of American Presbyterianism, and the biblical teaching on vow-making should help awaken in us a desire to pursue confessional integrity in our own lives and ministries. Here are four ways that we, as ministers in the Presbyterian Church in America, can pursue such confessional integrity:

1. Incorporate the Westminster Standards into our regular devotional and theological diet. We do ourselves an enormous disservice by failing to read the Standards regularly and devotionally. Whenever I have recognized such a deficiency in my own life and have returned to a meditative study of the Standards, I have come away sensing the enormity of the benefit derived. There is almost no theological subject upon which they do not touch. Additionally, the Standards have experiential warmth that is meant to stir the hearts of men and women unto a greater love for Christ and a deeper commitment to seeking after God.
2. Assimilate the Westminster Standards into our regular preaching ministry. There is no better source of theological definitions than those we will find in the Westminster Shorter and Larger Catechisms. For instance, if we are preaching from the Scriptures on the subject of regeneration, justification, sanctification, adoption, faith, or repentance, we will find no more careful and succinct definitions than those which we find in the Shorter Catechism.
3. Integrate the Westminster Standards into the ministries of our congregations. While some will have an initial reversion to it, one of the best things that we can do in our children’s ministries is to have our children memorizing the Shorter Catechism. A systematic approach enables us to cover nearly every precious doctrinal truth of Scripture with our covenant children. This is not to say that it should be a replacement to Bible memorization or teaching. However, there is no better supplement. After all, as Warfield expressed, we want our sons and daughters to grow up to be Shorter Catechism boys and girls.
4. Defend the Westminster Standards in the courts of our denomination. We who have taken ministerial vows to the Standards should be diligent to defend their teaching in the courts of our church. This means that if we serve on theological examination committees (i.e., committees appointed for the examination of men for licensure and ordination) we should test all theological answers against the clear teaching of the Standards we have vowed to uphold.

1. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdman’s, 1923), 160.

Follow up video:

The Usefulness of the Westminster Confession | Nick Batzig & Nate Shurden from Gospel Reformation Network on Vimeo.